Technical Materials IV: Materials I am Still Looking For

First a question, did you notice any general category of technical material missing from the materials in the previous posts in this series?

In the first post I mentioned the Reynolds etudes. I studied with Verne Reynolds and I end up using his etudes to a point with advanced students but to be honest, and this may sound like heresy again, what I really wish I could say is I have found is a book that is similar to Reynolds but the etudes are somewhat shorter and easier and could be attempted by younger students. Because that is the material I am still looking for.

In the Horn Central website there are  currently 194 horn studies books listed on this page. Certainly nothing listed there has quite reached the level of being a standard that is from the category of contemporary in style and not overly difficult.

A book I have been thinking about trying in lessons next year is this one, The Oliveros Interval Studies by Pauline Oliveros. These were written in 1959 and were published in 2002 by Burdick’s Edition; the listing to purchase may be found on this page. Oliveros is better known for electronic art music so these are a unique part of her output; I am sure not many horn players or teachers know of these etudes.

Musically these etudes do fit in at a place something like the Reynolds etudes (they are both interval based books) but not so long or difficult. They also seem musically interesting based on my impression to this point and it is a nice short book. However, and I hate to be overly critical in reviews such as this, I am a tough customer when it comes to music notation and I do wish they were notated better by the publisher. Still, it is not an expensive edition and is an option to consider trying as it is important to work on materials in a more contemporary style.

Besides the Reynolds the only other books that I have actually used in lessons from this general category are the Schuller Studies for Horn and the Falk Vingt Etudes Atonales (20 Atonal Studies). There are I am sure other books out there of this type that I have not tried; your thoughtful comments on this topic are certainly welcomed below. Or better still, if you are a composer/hornist, get busy, there is a market for something of this type that will track well in lessons week to week in a contemporary style.

One last little note, we have noted in our stats some traffic coming to us from the Horn Central website which is part of why I wanted to cite it above. It is a large site with quite a bit of horn info on it, developed by Brigitte Labelle. Congratulations to her on a nice site worth checking out if you have not yet done so.